Doo dee doo

So, guess where I am now? Yes, the "where are we?" guessing game is still going . . . until further notice.
I am sitting in the front (and only) room of a little studio apartment in Santa Monica, California. Why, you might ask? Three weeks ago I, myself, would not have had a clue. The reason is, Jacob is on Day #13 of his job at Yo Gabba Gabba working as a post production assistant! You heard that right--JOB. As in, paid employment. By some stroke of prayers, sweat, and tears, and a lot of stroke of miracle, we found work, film work, in California through December. We are still pinching ourselves. And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the beautiful proof.He got the call on a Monday night to start Tuesday (yes, the next day), and I spent the last week home soaking up time with family while he exhausted himself working 12-hour days on a very active film set. So unfair--I hope to join him shortly in the gainfully-employed department, but we are very, very grateful for one good job. I want to make that very clear before I start busting out the rest of my wishlist, which, I am sorry to say, is rather lengthy and, knowing me, probably always will be.

This week we spent a lot of fun time with family. Megan and Chris came to visit Mindy and Eldon in San Diego over Labor Day and Rob and I were lucky enough to join them on Friday when they spent the day at Six Flags. Rob served as my therapist all day, coaching me through Lamaz breathing exercises just before every takeoff and anytime we were hiking up a big incline on the coasters. Those rides are not for the faint of heart. By the end of it, I was very proud of myself for doing a lot of things that were very scary to me. In honor of our bravery, we took a picture in our best superhero poses, obviously!

Then it was off to Rob's improv show which, 2 for 2, is first-class entertainment. I literally could not stop laughing at one point. It's such a small venue that I failed miserably at keeping it under wraps and the gentleman who made the winning joke was apparently so flattered that he paused the show to give me a hug. That is the best feeling, laughing uncontrollably, and those moments are so rare. Well worth the 10 bucks I paid for it.


Then on Saturday Jacob was able to join us (yea!) for a trip to his cousin Kevin Prince's game who is the freshman quarterback for UCLA (#14 if you can find him, I think he's in there somewhere.) Verdict: He played great and they won! Jacob has been working so diligently with me to understand the rules of football, this time I cheered with the crowd as opposed to just after. It was so fun to be there and spend time with family.



So it's been a little over a week living in Santa Monica and we've been trying to make the most of the perks since we'll only be living here a few more weeks. One of them is the beach which is a sickening one-block (and I do mean ONE block) from our apartment. Jacob and I spent the afternoon there on Labor Day, just walked down there. No parking, nothing. Unbelievable.
Great photo--caption: "Why does my wife want a picture right now?"


There's the farmer's market every Wednesday and Saturday which is tons of fun and very organic/earth-friendly, which people love around here. I bought a few items yesterday and downed what must have been half a loaf of bread for lunch all by myself. So delicious.


And the Pier! Well, we haven't made it all the way down there yet. We will! But yesterday was the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Santa Monica Pier. There were fireworks and everybody was lined up along the coast. It was a big deal that there was clearance for fireworks after all the fires. Jacob thought it was so strange how everyone was totally silent watching them. It was pretty cool.

So being able to look back over the last several months with some small dose of retrospect and understanding, I can say with utter certainty that I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen. I don't know if any of you ever feel this way but for a while there I had a really hard time reading other people's blogs or going to any kind of social gathering. I just could not hear one more success story of someone else's great new job, or beautiful baby, or brand new home when I was going through what has easily been the hardest year of my life thus far. And the scary part is, this could be just the beginning. We have absolutely no guarantee of anything out here, especially now. Jacob and I laughed the other night when he was talking to a high school friend who heard about Jacob's job and called it the "big time." WHILE WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL FOR HIS JOB, we are hardly living the big time. Unless, of course, you'd call that living out of plastic drawers in a 300 sq. foot studio with no A/C, washer/dryer, dishwasher, or microwave, absolutely NO privacy, and rent that soaks up over half our current salary . . . then yeah, you're probably right.

The truth is, we all struggle. Nobody's life is perfect but if you're like me, you just don't like to broadcast the imperfections. I try to be positive, but I never mean to paint a picture so rosy as to incite the jealousy of someone else. The real sadness in our employment, albeit temporary, is that we have so many other friends and family struggling to find work right now. I don't know why this is such a hard time for so many good, well-deserving people. It makes me very, very sad. I am grateful for my recent struggles to the extent that I feel more mindful of others in their trials. We just never know what other people are going through. We really don't know.

I hope it turns around soon, I think we all do, but in the meantime, I'm praying for all of us who are needing some extra love and support right now. We all do some days.